


crush

by awkwardspaceturtle (CastelloFlare)



Series: dumbstruck [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Crush, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastelloFlare/pseuds/awkwardspaceturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Shiro forgets to function as a normal human being when faced with someone who makes him have feelings, and Allura just wants him to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crush

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a sap so here's some sheith fluff, with sheith shipper allura

“Shirogane Takashi – college junior student extraordinaire, President of the Voltron Society of Astronomy, Vice President of the Galaxy Academy Student Council, recipient of the first prototype cyborg prosthetic arm, and finally, a budding artist– ,” Allura recited excitedly in one breath, a thick sketchpad clasped in her hands. “ – _who_ is this young man you’ve been sketching?”

Shiro’s entire body froze, like a still life painting caught in the middle of placing a book back into a shelf, while balancing a whole stack of reference books in his other hand. They were in the library, and he found himself praying hard to all of the gods his parents introduced to him as a kid – the sky god, the water god, the grass god – that no one had heard what his friend had said.

“Hello? Earth to Shiro?” Allura snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Could you please come back from Kerberos Moon and answer me? Who’s this boy in your sketc—”

“Sssh,” Shiro said as he quickly put all the books back in their rightful places at high speed. “Allura, aren’t you supposed to be here for your Politics paper?”

“Oh please, that tortoise-face Professor Zarkon could wait for all I care,” Allura put a hand on her hip, her other hand waving the sketchpad in Shiro’s space. “So again, I shall reiterate. Who is this young ma—”

Shiro quickly made to grab for his sketchpad, but Allura’s hands were quicker.

“Can we please not talk about that here in the library?” Shiro said, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

“As long as you’re gonna talk,” Allura nodded in satisfaction.

 

  
“His name is Keith Kogane,” Shiro said, a hand absently fumbling with the edges of his fringe, brown eyes cast down at his Mint Chocolate Frappuccino. “He’s also in Aeronautics, and he’s a freshman, the only one on the track team. We’ve been to class together a few times.”

“So he’s two years our junior,” Allura nodded thoughtfully as she sipped some warm jasmine tea. “Great, if you ask him out, you can still have two years together in school, then by the time you graduate, you’ll have been close enough to decide living together, and getting an apartment outside school—”

“Okay, slow down there,” Shiro coughed as he almost choked on his frap. Despite the cold of his drink, his cheeks burned with so much intensity, Allura thought she could fry an egg on his face. “Let’s not get too over imaginative here – it’s just a crush.”

“ _Just_ a crush?” Now it was Allura’s turn to choke on her tea. “Shiro, in all of the years I’ve known you, you have never expressed any romantic interest – or any form of interest at all – on a another human being that wasn’t a figurine! This Keith Karate guy—”

“ _Kogane_.”

“That’s like the fourth time you’ve interrupted me today, Shiro,” Allura narrowed her eyes at him. “Anyways, have you even looked back at your drawings?”

“Every day,” Shiro muttered, his blush reaching all the way to his ears.

“Since our freshmen year, you have sketched nothing but different aircrafts and pilots, and suddenly, you have this separate sketchpad of nothing but this Keith Cajone—”

“ _Oh my god, Allura_ ,” Shiro groaned.

“I mean, look at this!” Allura turned to the page she was looking for. “You drew the guy’s backside during a Gen Ed class. And this—” she turned the page yet again – “Keith running on the track field; Keith sitting in the cafeteria; Keith loitering in the hallway; and all these other angles of his face over and over, like you’ve already memorized each line and contour of his physique. Shiro, this isn’t _just_ a crush. You’re _obsessed_. And you don't know what to do with your feelings because it's a first for you.”

“This is embarrassing,” Shiro muttered to his hands, which were covering his beet red face. “This is why I _never_ talk to anyone about this.”

“I’m the first one to know?” Allura smiled animatedly, looking a bit smug and mischievous.

“Don’t you try to do anything, Allura,” Shiro glared at her through human and bionic fingers.

“Hey, I could keep a secret,” she smiled innocently, but the playful glint in her unusually colored eyes didn’t disappear.

 

  
The first time she laid her eyes on him, Allura knew she was looking at Shiro’s Keith. She had seen enough of her friend’s sketches to recognize the trademark mullet and brooding expression, even from a mile away – which was an exaggeration, given that they were all just in the library.

Beside her, Shiro had gone stiff and robotic like his arm that she had to pinch him back to consciousness. A sigh and a glare later, they were looking for books and astrological maps needed by the Voltron Society of Astronomy, a task they were taking longer than usual to finish with the President mixing up the names of the titles. Shiro’s brain was a mess; he couldn’t even remember where which book could be found in which shelf.

Somewhere in the common hall of the library was Keith Kogane. They were breathing the same air and sharing the same space (with other people, of course). The thought of the best person she knew getting all flustered without yet having to make contact with the object of his affection absolutely amused Allura, but they also had their responsibilities to the Society as its President and Manager.

“I think we’ve got all the books now, Shiro,” she said, her hands full of rolls of maps.

“Really? Let’s go get these checked out with the librarian, then,” Shiro said, and he pulled the Organization Library Card from his bag before carrying his stack of books.

As they came out of the maze of shelves into the common hall, Shiro visibly froze yet again. There, standing by the librarian’s desk holding a couple of books, was Keith _fucking_ Kogane.

Shiro felt the room temperature rising, melting his legs to jelly. Perspiration seeped through the pores on his forehead, his neck, his pits – what was he doing in the library anyway? Did Allura set them up like he specifically told her not to?

“Stop drooling and get a move on,” Allura snickered as she nudged Shiro with her knee. Shiro glared at her through his fringe but continued to walk, albeit with shaky legs, towards the counter. Apparently, Keith was also borrowing some books, so Shiro decided he should wait behind the freshman, but Allura nudged him forward yet again.

“Oh,” Keith looked up beside him and met Shiro’s eyes.

“Oh,” Shiro echoed, a blush creeping up his neck to his face.

Allura wished she had a camera with her.

Keith noticed the staggering amount of books and references they would be borrowing.

“You could go first, if you like,” he said, eyes going back to the couple of books he held in his hands. Shiro silently noted how long his eyelashes were, how lush his lips looked—

“Library card?” came the librarian’s monotonous and impatient voice.

“Ah, yes,” Shiro swallowed, passed the card, and quietly let Mrs. Cortez to process it. Beside him Allura was madly poking at his bicep, urging him to interact more, or to just say something now that the chance had presented itself. Time went by agonizingly slow yet simultaneously fast, and in those small moments Shiro spent stealing glances and inhaling his scent, time and everything else had somehow ceased to exist, and yet all too abruptly – it was over.

“Next,” Mrs. Cortez said, seemingly bored out of her wits, as she placed the library card on top of Shiro’s stack of books.

Allura noticed how Shiro’s face fell, how his body was rendered immobilized for a tick.

“Ah… thank you,” Shiro said, his voice a little quiet. Without another word, he carried the stack of books in his arms, and turned towards the exit. Allura stared at his rigid back a moment, before rushing out to walk beside him.

“Wow,” Shiro said after a quiet moment of walking through the halls. Each step he took was adding more distance further from Keith, and a disgusting bubble of regret was forming at the pit of his chest. “I am so weak.”

“No, you’re not, Shiro,” Allura smiled gently. “ _He_ just makes you weak in the knees.”

Shiro sighed, then his mouth formed a rueful smile. “At least I didn’t seem weird, I guess. I mean, I can still observe and draw him from a distance, like always.”

“Uh, yeah,” Allura said, her eyes darting sideways. "Draw him. Of course." When she didn’t say anything else after, Shiro stopped in his tracks, and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Why do I suddenly have this suspicious feeling—”

“Hey,” said a familiar voice from behind them. Instead of responding immediately to being called, Shiro froze yet again.

“Yes?” It was Allura, who was the embodiment of diplomacy and congeniality combined, who turned around and addressed the voice. “What is it?”

With a high-heeled boot, she nudged his knee yet again, and Shiro started, clumsily turning on his heels that some of the books almost fell from his grasp. Fortunately, Keith wasn’t as big a klutz as he was, and with both hands he gently pushed the teetering stack back against Shiro’s chest. For what seemed like a moment, Shiro was breathless, and went totally still.

“Takashi Shirogane, right?”

Hearing his name come out of Keith’s mouth made his head and chest hurt, but in a good way. He felt like he was either drunk or about ready to fly.

He couldn’t make a sound, so he just nodded.

“I think you dropped this,” Keith said, and placed a sketchpad with Shiro’s name on it over the pile of books.

Shiro’s eyes went wide, and he felt heat surging through his whole body. He was so embarrassed, his head seemed like it was about to explode. A part of him was pretty sure Allura had done something while he was distracted at the librarian’s desk; another part of him wanted to fly to Kerberos Moon and live as a hermit there for a while. Most of all, he felt painfully aware of how Keith was just staring at him, not saying anything more. His silence was making Shiro’s head spin.

“And he’s very thankful that you returned it,” Allura smiled amicably beside them.

“It’s nothing,” Keith said, taking a tiny step back. Then for what seemed like a tick, he lingered a bit, eyeing a still immobile Shiro, and said, “I guess I’ll see you guys around.”

Then he turned around, and left.

Shiro stared at Keith’s diminishing form as he walked away, for what seemed like ages he did nothing but gaze at the way his slender legs moved, how his back looked straight and firm, how his hair seemed soft and silky—

Allura’s giddy laughter shook him awake from his drunken stupor, and he suddenly turned towards her. She had flipped through the pages of his sketchpad and was looking eagerly at something.

“What did you do this time—”

“Shiro,” she whispered, a little breathless from excitement and giddiness. Then she showed him the page where his latest sketch of Keith was. Then Shiro’s eyes widened once more, a deep red returning to tint his cheeks.

On the paper was his drawing of Keith wiping the sweat off his neck using the edge of his shirt. Below it were new inscriptions and a hastily drawn signature.

Allura’s bright smile never left her face.

“He left you his _number_.”

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU FOR READINGG  
> also, if you want to talk sheith with me, hmu on tumblr, this is the sappy and awkward eruriholic


End file.
